The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 181
The work involved a project which Ross had shelved temporarily in order to concentrate on the search for survivors, a robot helicopter. Now the possession of such a machine might mean the difference between life and death for him—if the search robots found food and if it could not be brought to him fast enough by land to reach him in time. So he built models and read aeronautical texts and watched his prototype helicopter chew up the hillside with its rotors in vain attempts to throw itself into the air. Then one day it staggered off the ground and circled at an altitude of one hundred feet under a rough semblance of control. Watching from the small dome Ross felt very little satisfaction, because it had taken him thirteen days to achieve this. He had five days left.
The helicopter was still clattering about the sky when one of his Miners reported in. Negatively, as usual.
The problem, according to the robot searcher, was that its metal detection equipment was not sensitive enough to differentiate between food cannisters and the structural wreckage with which they would be associated. The only solution involved sinking test tunnels at intervals and examining the wreckage visually. This was a long, difficult process which held small probability of success, the robot warned, because, in addition to the time involved, none of the city underground shelters had been as deep as the hospital's Fifth level so that any food which might be found would almost certainly be inedible.
"Things are tough all over," said Ross, and cut the connection viciously. But there was another attention signal blinking at him. He keyed it into the main screen and saw a wavering grey blur which resolved itself into a blizzard, immediately the caller identified itself. It was Miner One.
"Sir," it began tonelessly, "data gained after forty-seven test bores leads me to the following deductions. During the war very many nuclear missiles were intercepted and exploded in the polar regions, and several interception bases and stockpiles were situated under the ice. It must have been the most heavily bombed area on the planet. The background radiation is still above normal, though not dangerously so. Analysis of the underlying soil shows complete sterility."
Ross didn't know what he said to the Miner. All hope had drained out of him and suddenly he was horribly afraid. His world that he had been trying to make live again was dead, the land a crematorium and the ocean a black graveyard, and himself a wriggling blob which had lived a little past its time. And now his time was coming.
He had never considered himself to be the suicidal type, and in the two years since his awakening he had never seriously considered it. But now he wanted to break cleanly with life before he could become any more afraid, something quick like a drop down the elevator shaft or a oneway swim out to sea. At the same time he knew that Sister would not allow anything like that. He knew that he was doomed to a horrible, lingering death from slow starvation, probably with Sister asking for instructions and clicking because she could not supply the one thing he needed, and he felt himself begin to tremble.
"Have you any instructions, sir?" said Sister, over and over.
"No!"
The Sister's voice was not designed to express emotion, but somehow she managed to do so as she said, "Sir, can you discuss the future?"
In her emotionless, mechanical fashion Sister was frightened, too, and suddenly Ross remembered one of his early discussions with her. If he died then the robots' reason for being would be gone, it was as simple as that. No wonder they were all asking for instructions, and no wonder Sister had let him work two hours past his bedtime a few nights ago. He didn't know what death involved exactly for a robot, but it was obvious that they were scared stiff. He could feel sorry for them, because he understood how they felt.
Softening his tone, Ross said, "My original instructions regarding the search for survivors will keep you busy for a long time, and those instructions stand. And there is another area of search which I haven't mentioned until now. Space. There was manned space travel for six decades before the war, with a base on the Moon and perhaps on other bodies as well. All of them would have had to be maintained from Earth and could not have supported life indefinitely. But with Deep Sleep techniques ..."
It's a strong possibility, Ross thought sadly; If only I could have been around when those robots reported back.
"... Anyway," he went on, "I am giving you direct orders to find human survivors. Don't stop looking until you do. You will therefore be serving me until you find your new master, so I think that solves your problem."
"Thank you, sir."
"The Moon and Mars are the best bets," Ross said, half to himself. "I know nothing about astronautics, but the search will turn up books on the subject, or uncompleted missiles which you can study. And be careful about the air pressure, you can operate in a vacuum but humans can't. And when you do find them tell them that I ... tell them ..."
It should be a noble, inspiring message, one that would ring gloriously across the centuries. But everything he wanted to say had a whining, frightened note to it, a coward's soliloquy. He shook his head angrily, then repeated Dr. Pellew's last message to himself.
"Tell them it's their problem now, and good luck."
Abruptly Ross whirled and charged out of the dome and along the corridor leading toward the elevators. Striding along he cursed, loudly and viciously and as horribly as he knew how. He cursed to keep from crying and for no other reason, because the thought of Pellew and the brilliant, selfless, utterly splendid men who had preceded him was the greatest tragedy his world had ever known. He thought of Hanson, Pellew, Courtney and the others, of the desperate, unsuccessful experiment with the mutations, and the unending struggle to cure the incurables who were in Deep Sleep—which had been successful. But mostly he thought of those grand old men watching and working alone while all around them the patients and their colleagues slept, taking turns at going into Deep Sleep and running their relay race against time. And all for nothing. It had served merely to extend the life-time of the human race, or more accurately the last member of it, by two miserable years.
Chapter Eight
WITHOUT remembering how he got there Ross found himself in his room. The bed hadn't been properly made for days and the place was a shambles of scattered books and papers. A few days after his awakening a Cleaner had upset some of his notes and he had forbidden the robots to tidy the place ever since. Making the bed and cleaning up had helped keep his mind occupied, and he had never countermanded the order. He tipped a pile of books off his chair, and in the act of sitting down saw himself in the locker mirror. He dropped the chair and moved closer. It had occurred to him that he was looking at the Last Man and he felt a morbid curiosity.
He wasn't much to look at, Ross thought; a skinny body dressed in a ridiculous toga. The face was thin and sensitive, with further proof of that sensitivity—or weakness—apparent in the way the lips quivered and in the dampness around the eyes. It was a young, impressionable, enthusiastic face, the face of a man who was too much of a coward to face reality and too stupid to give up hope. Ross turned away and threw himself onto his unmade bed.
For two years he had tried to avoid thinking of the past because of the awful sense of loneliness and loss it brought, and he had concentrated instead on a bright, distant, rather indistinct future in which he would gradually bring together a nucleus of humanity and set out bravely to repopulate the world. Now he had to face the fact that he was going to die soon, that there was no future, and that the only thing of value left to him was the past. He wanted to remember his pre-awakening period, now—in some strange way he considered it his duty to remember as many places, and events and people as he possibly could.
Gradually his fear had been replaced by a mood of vast solemnity, a sadness so complete and all-embracing that it was almost a pleasure. Now he knew what he had to do with his remaining days of life.
Remember.
For the days which followed Ross set a timetable for himself—a loose, unhurried timetable which was subject to change without notice. In the mornings he read, chiefly from books which he had hitherto considered painful or a waste of time. He did not complete the works but dipped briefly into poetry, into brute violence, into sickly-sweet romance. Sometimes he would merely look at the dust-jackets, at the ordinary, studious or pseudo-Bohemian faces who had had three children, or gained a Nobel Prize or been married three times, and who had produced works like The Body Doesn't Bleed, Alternative Method for Producing the Hannigar Meson Reaction or Dawn Song. He did not try to criticize or evaluate; the good, bad, tragic, sordid and glorious were remembered, and nothing more. In a way Ross was holding a wake, remembering the good and bad points of the deceased, and he had an awful lot of remembering to do.
In the afternoons he would pace the long, shining corridors and go over in his mind what he had read that morning, or he would listen to music or lecture tapes—the few remaining which had not become distorted beyond use by the passage of time—or try to hum a piece of music which originally had been scored for full orchestra. Then in the evening he would return to his room and get into philosophical arguments with Sister until the lights went out.
It was then that his hands would begin to shake and he would begin to wonder if he would be able to carry on with this act of quiet resignation to the end, or when his hunger became extreme and he no longer had the strength to read or hold a book would he start crying and begging for the robots to do something, and die blubbering like a baby. He was only twenty-four and he didn't think he could trust himself.
On the fourth day—the last in which he would have full rations—he went onto the surface. It had rained during the night and visibility was fairly good. He found a rock on the hillside facing the sea and sat watching the grimey rollers breaking on a black shore. It was his own life he was remembering now, some ingrained habit of politeness returning people and incidents in their reverse order of importance. His sheltered childhood, the emotional confusion of adolescence, the hospital with its acid-voiced ogre Dr. Pellew, the parents he was beginning to appreciate only now, and Alice ...
Suddenly restless, Ross got up from his rock and began climbing the hill again. He walked quickly past the control dome, where the search robots continued to send in their negative reports—no food, no survivors, no life of any kind. When he came to the landward-facing slope, which had once been the hospital park, he stopped.
An expanse of rich, dark earth streaked with ash in which nothing grew, not because it was incapable of supporting growth but because all growing things were dead. On the day before he was to go into Deep Sleep it had not been like this, however; Ross felt that he could remember every unpruned bush and knee high blade of grass. The "park" never had been well tended.
He had been trying to act as though nothing very important was going to happen, as if Deep Sleep was a simple appendectomy. When Alice came off duty he had asked her to go swimming with him, the way he had always done. Ross wanted to have a last swim and to say good-bye to her on the beach. But Alice had insisted that the sea wind was too cold, it was late September, and she wanted to go for a walk instead. She had held his hand tightly even before they left the hospital building, and Alice had previously been too shy for such public demonstrations of affection, and they had gone into the park. He had tried to keep the conversation gay and inconsequential for as long as he could, but eventually he had to begin to say good-bye ...
While the idea of Deep Sleep had frightened Ross it had been nowhere near as strong as a fear of death. He knew that he would awaken someday and so far as he was concerned there would be no interval of time. But he had not realized that to Alice he was going to die tomorrow, going to disappear from the world and from her life. He had not been prepared for this Alice, who clung so fiercely to him that he could hardly breathe, and wet his cheeks with her tears and whose eyes, when they looked into his, held so much love and sheer compassion that ...
She had been a quiet, thoughtful girl—pleasant, but practical. When Ross qualified they were to be married, but even with him she had maintained a certain reserve. He remembered her telling him laughingly that she preferred to neck on the beach, because there the ocean was handy for him to cool off in.
Standing on that muddy hillside with its eternal smell of damp smoke, Ross knew that Alice was his most precious memory. He thought that at this moment, with the memory of that slow walk back through warm-smelling grass which caught at their feet sharp and clear in his mind, he was prepared to die.
And then suddenly his newly achieved mood of calm and solemn acceptance of his fate was shattered, by that same memory. He began to tremble violently as the realization grew in him that he might, just possibly, not have to die at all. On that September day he had been given more than he knew, he had been given his life.
Oh, Alice ... he thought.
BEHIND him Sister was expressing concern over his shivering and making determined efforts to take his temperature. This struck him as being excruciatingly funny and he began to laugh. Sister became even more concerned.
"I'm all right," he said, sobering. In a voice which was still far from steady he gave his orders. All search robots were to be recalled for a special project. He gave minutely detailed instructions regarding it to Sister, and made her repeat them back, because he would not be available himself when they arrived. Finally, immediate preparations must be made to put him into Deep Sleep ...
Four hours later he was lying in the padded, coffin-like container with the section above his face hinged back to reveal the glittering lenses of Sister staring down at him. The cold had passed the uncomfortable stage and was becoming almost pleasant.
"Now remember," he said for about the fourth time, "if the idea doesn't work out I don't want to be awakened. You'd be wakening me only to let me die of starvation ..."
"I understand, sir," said Sister. "Have you any other instructions?"
"Yes ..." began Ross, but lost track of what he said after that. The chill was accelerating through his body and he must have been in a kind of cold delirium. Soon the entire room and its contents would be similarly refrigerated as a precaution against a breakdown of his container, a point which he had forgotten until a few hours ago. He kept seeing the ludicrous picture of three path Sisters dissecting the cuffs of his old tweed trousers. Swim or walk, sea or park, death or life. He wanted Alice.
"I'm sorry, sir."
THE FLAP closed with a gentle click and the cold was like an explosion within him that engulfed his mind in icy darkness. But deep inside him there was a spot of warmth which had no business being there, and a light which grew until it pained his eyes. Faulty equipment, he thought disgustedly, or they've muffed it. When his vision cleared he glared up at Sister, too angry and disappointed to speak.
"Do not try to move, Mr. Ross," the Sister said sharply. "You are to undergo a half-hour massage, after which you should be able to walk unassisted. Are you ready ...?"
It might be massage to Sister, Ross thought as he gritted his teeth in agony, but to him it felt like the treatment received in the worst of the old-time concentration camps rather than something of therapeutic value. At the end of the longest half-hour of his life Sister lifted him to a sitting position, and he succeeded in gathering enough breath to speak.
"What happened? Why did you wake me up ...?"
"Can you stand up, Mr. Ross, and move around?" asked Sister, ignoring him. Ross could, and did. The robot said, "I suggest we go to the surface, sir."
Noting the "sir", Ross snarled, "So I'm not your patient anymore, somebody you could order about and beat half to death? Now I'm the boss again, and I want some straight answers. What went wrong, why did you halt the cool-down? Have you found an edible food cache ...?"
"You have been in Deep Sleep," said Sister quietly, "for forty-three thousand years."
The reply left Ross mentally stunned. He was unable to speak much less ask further questions during the trip to the surface, and there he received a greater shock.
Chapter Nine
THE SUN shone clear and yellow and incandescent out of pale blue sky, and from his feet a rippling sea of green stretched to the horizon. Five miles away the hills which he had not been able to see since his first Deep Sleep had a misty look, but it was the pale shimmer of a heat haze rather than wind-blown smoke. The air tasted like nothing he had remembered, so clean and fresh and sparkling that he seemed to be drinking rather than breathing it. Ross closed his eyes and with heart pounding madly in his throat turned a half circle, then he opened them.
Pale blue sky and deep blue sea were separated at the horizon by a distant range of white cumulus. The bay was filled with whitecaps and the biggest rollers that Ross had ever seen burst like liquid snow onto a beach that was clean yellow sand for as far as the eye could see.
Suddenly visibility was reduced to nil by a mist in his eyes, although Ross never felt less like crying in all his life.
"It took much longer than you had estimated," the Sister's voice came from behind him, "for the grass grown from your seedlings to make the change from interior cultivation in artificial u/v to surface beds covered by transparent plastic, and even longer before they would grow unprotected on the surface. This was due to finely divided ash in the atmosphere having a masking effect on those sections of the solar spectrum necessary for the growth of plant life. However time and natural mutational changes had produced a strain capable of surviving surface conditions."
Without pausing, Sister went on, "While this strain was developing the ash was gradually being absorbed by the sea and land surface, causing an increase in sunlight. This accelerated the spread of the grass, which in turn hastened the fixing of ash into the soil. And as the grass had no natural enemies or competing life-forms, its spread across the planet was, relatively, quite rapid. But it required an additional several millennia for it to evolve, and for us to isolate, edible grains suitable for processing into food.
